“History is philosophy teaching by example;” and it is not to be supposed that there are not, even amongst the zealots for the Repeal of the Union in Ireland, some few who will be attentive to its lessons: it is chiefly in this anxious hope, that I have transcribed the present volumes. The more so too, because Belgium is the one bright example, which those who have addressed themselves to unsettle the allegiance of the Irish people, have always ostentatiously paraded for their imitation and encouragement. From this selection they cannot now retreat; and I confidently believe, that the exposition contained in the following pages of the condition of that country, after ten years of separation and independence, will exhibit Belgium to Ireland, if as an example at all, only as-- Exemplar vitiis imitabile. Neither the social nor the material prosperity of Belgium, affords anything encouraging to the hopes of those who can profit by the experience of others; and as, in Ireland, the materials in which the vital experiment must be made are similar, the results to be anticipated must be the same. With Popery, merely as a complexion of Christianity--as a distinctly marked form of religion--a legislator has no further concern, than as regards the question of enlightened toleration. But _political Popery_, that character in which the followers of the Church of Rome, are exhibiting themselves in Belgium and in Ireland--“resting their lever on one world,” as Dryden says, “to move another at their will”--enters essentially, and of necessity, into the investigation and study of the statesman. And, in no instance, in modern times, has it so unreservedly exhibited itself, as in the conception, the achievement, and the results, of the Belgian revolution. It remains to be seen, whether the Liberal party in Ireland, whose co-operation encourages and sustains the advocates of the Repeal of the Union, will relish the prospect of such an absolute religious ascendancy of the majority in that country, as that which has succeeded to the most absolute freedom of worship, and the most unlimited liberty of conscience in the Low Countries.